Myrtle Beach comes off long break to dismantle Wilson, stay unbeaten

After being held away from the playing field for just short of entire month during the middle of an undefeated run, the Myrtle Beach Seahawks picked up where it left off Friday night, beating Wilson 41-27 to stay undefeated in Region VII-4A to move to 8-0 on the season.

Complications stemming from the destruction of Hurricane Matthew, followed by the team’s scheduled bye week last week, the Seahawks (8-0, 2-0) found themselves sitting out for 28 days since their last game, a 43-23 win over rival North Myrtle Beach on Sept. 30.

The Seahawks came out swinging with no signs of rust after the long break as they amassed 401 total yards against the Tigers (3-5, 1-1) including 358 through the air, led by junior quarterback Lawson Cribb, who passed for 309 yards and two touchdowns.

“I’ve never been in this situation before,” Seahawks head coach Mickey Wilson said about the 28-day break. “This was very unusual to have such a long break especially right in the middle of the season but I’m proud of these kids, they really wanted to get back on the field and I’m proud to get this win, especially under such unusual circumstances.”

The Seahawks started a little slow as Cribb couldn’t connect with his targets, throwing incomplete passes on his first five attempts. After an accidental knelt ball by Wilson punter Tyler Schimek and two pass interference calls later, senior Keyonte Sessions legged out a three-yard run to score Myrtle Beach’s first touchdown in the month of October. After the Seahawks dusted off the cobwebs, they scored 20 points in the second quarter, ignited by a 98-yard drive on three passes, a 47-yarder to senior wideout Will Vereen, followed by a 38-yard toss to sophomore Chunk Grisset and the scoring pass, a 13-yard touchdown to sophomore Jermani Green.

“We came out a little rusty in the first quarter, but really played well in the second,” Wilson said. “Our timing was a little off in the beginning but we came out and were able to establish with big plays. We saw the way they were playing defense and took some big shots down the field and fortunately we were able to take advantage.”

As the Seahawk offense got rolling, its defense was consistent against the struggling Tigers, holding them to seven points through the first three quarters and scoreless throughout the first half. Junior quarterback Jacob Quillen passed for only 83 yards, going 7-for-22, 41 of those yards coming on a touchdown toss to senior Tyler Johnson to start the third quarter. The Tigers scored 20 points in the fourth quarter after Myrtle Beach started playing some of its second- and third-string players.

“We knew coming in that they really liked throwing the ball,” Seahawk defensive coordinator John Sedeska said. “They had some success early on running the ball but as soon as we put them in third-down situations, we knew that they would start throwing. It all starts with the front four and putting pressure on the quarterback. They are really a special group of guys.”

Even though the Seahawks played superb defense most of the night and threw the ball easily against the Tigers’ struggling defense, it was on the ground where Myrtle Beach scored most Friday night. Besides Sessions’ score in the first quarter, he also scored from the one-yard-line in the second quarter to give him two touchdowns for the evening. Green also added two more scores on the ground from seven and three yards out to give him three touchdowns on the in total for the undefeated Seahawks.

Next week Myrtle Beach will travel to St. James to play a winless Sharks team that has struggled to get things going this year, but that doesn’t mean that the Seahawks are planning on taking it easy this week.

“St. James is a well-coached team and they are going to play hard against us,” Sedeska said. “We know regardless of who we play, we’re going to get their best effort and we just need to go in there and play fundamentally sound and do what we do well.”

This story was originally published October 29, 2016 at 12:57 AM with the headline "Myrtle Beach comes off long break to dismantle Wilson, stay unbeaten."